Sparkling Beth

That's exactly what I was thinking! Some of these kids seem to be under the impression that if they move frantically enough, we won't notice how badly they're singing. Jax is so not a rock star. She already proved it with Beat It and now she put the nail in the coffin with My Generation. She doesn't have the inner grit to make those songs what they should be; she's just a little girl putting on glittery clothes from Walmart and singing into a hairbrush. Did anyone else wonder what happened to Nick's girlfriend, the one who auditioned with him and didn't get chosen? (I actually thought she had a lovely voice and should have been given a chance to sing another song, since the cups thing was distracting.) I expected to see her in the hometown visit but she was neither shown nor mentioned. It's tempting to speculate that she didn't take the situation as well as it seemed back in the audition shows and broke up with him out of jealousy, but who knows. It just seems to me that if they were still together, she would have been in the hometown visit video.

Don't you mean "sux"? Thank you, folks, I'll be here all week! Drive safely!

Possible themes this week: A Song I Know A Song That Exists A Song With Notes A Song With Lyrics A Song With A Title A Song With Instrumental Accompaniment Could be any one of those! Whatever it is, won't it be exciting to see what the contestants do with it?!! Wheeeeee!!!!

As a rule, singing with a celebrity in the finale isn't limited to the two finalists. Random examples: Paris Bennett (who finished fifth in Season Five) singing with Al Jarreau, Michael Sarver and Megan Joy (#10 and #9, respectively, in Season Eight) singing with Steve Martin, Angie Miller (#3 in Season Twelve) singing with Adam Lambert, and Sanjaya (#7 in Season Six) singing with Joe Perry of Aerosmith.

I voted for Clark tonight to stick it to that douche bag Scott. I can't stand that Borchetta guy. It says everything about him that he made a singing star out of a young woman who Can. Not. Sing. I don't begrudge Taylor Swift her success because I do think she's a really good songwriter, she should just be writing songs. The fact that she can sell millions of records through the magic of autotune is what's wrong with the music industry today. You might as well just program a computer to sing the songs and bypass the human element altogether. I liked Clark's second song anyway, so voting for him wasn't just my feeble effort to slow the bus that the Idol machine has sent after him. I thought his vocal was the best and most interesting of the night. He does acrobatics with his voice that I find enjoyable.

Pretty sure that was really his mom, because her Twitter account afterward was full of retweets she did of people defending her right to defend her son. I didn't see her original comments, but she struck me as odd from the beginning. Telling the world that your son is a virgin even while he's looking horrified? That's emotional child abuse. Good parents don't intentionally embarrass their children--in front of TV cameras, yet!

Which is precisely why Ryan pressed the issue. If Ryan had just let Quentin go back to his seat at that point without asking what he was feeling, I have no doubt we'd be seeing posts complaining about how insensitive Ryan was to Quentin's feelings. "Ryan could tell that Quentin was upset! Why didn't he ask him what was wrong? Clearly he doesn't care about what these kids are going through!" Viewers would have been left wondering what was going on and maybe imagining scenarios that were worse than what the situation actually was. I still think Quentin acted like a petulant little brat who couldn't accept the rules of the show that he voluntarily joined. He knew what he and the others were getting into. Grow up, Quentin, and just be glad you and your friend Joey got a chance that thousands of people would kill for. (I just ended two sentences in a row with a preposition. Might have to give back my degree in English.)

If only Quentin had seemed sad instead of mad, he could have convinced me that he felt bad for his friend. Instead, it was just what Harry said--he was complaining about the whole premise of the show for which he willingly signed on. It's odd to me that the same people who are saying Harry dissed the other contestants by saying Clark was the only real musician (and yes, I disagree with Harry on that) are apparently okay with Quentin implying that the wrong contestants were in the bottom two. Isn't that a diss of his fellow contestants who were not in the bottom two? If Joey and Rayvon shouldn't have been in the bottom two, who does he think should have been? Name names, Quentin, if you feel the audience vote was so "wack." I dare you.

I think in the world of popular music, that's pretty much the goal!

Perfectly stated. Everyone understands being sad for a friend. But Quentin acted angry, not sad, and pretty much indicated that the show was deliberately targeting his friend who he apparently believed had more right to be there than the other contestants. Had he never seen the show before? Talented people are voted off all the time. Ask Jennifer Hudson. Ask Chris Daughtry. IT'S A COMPETITION. If you can't handle it, even if speaking for a friend, don't sign up for it.

Well, I may be a cult of one, but I agreed with Harry. In fact, if I had been Harry, I would have put Quentin on the spot and asked, "Okay, so of the contestants who are left, who do you think SHOULD be in the bottom two?" This is how the show frikkin' works. Someone goes home every week (unless the judges stupidly use The Save on Qaasim). It reminds me of the Simon/Paula/Randy days when the judges would remind the viewers that they have to vote or their favorite will go home, as if it were possible to save EVERYONE if only people voted. Someone goes home. If it's not Joey, it's someone else that many people would be upset to see voted off. Quentin was way out of line, and I thought it was interesting that when Harry made his statement, I didn't hear a lot of boos from the audience, even though they're prone to boo if a judge simply says the performance wasn't the best. I thought for sure this would be Rayvon's week to go, but man, he even won me over with that stunning performance of "Always On My Mind." I hadn't been that impressed with him up until now but he really proved he could sing with that one. I was glad he survived yet another Twitter Save.

That surprises me, because I think Rayvon is adequate at best. He keeps slipping into that dreadful falsetto and I don't know if it's because he doesn't have much vibrato or what, but when he hits a clunker note, he just stays there seemingly unable to adjust it. To me, the best technical singers this year are Clark, Nick, and Tyanna. Joey and Jax are decent enough singers, not great, and are relying more on gimmick than technical ability. Quentin puts a lot of feeling into his performances but he's really not a great vocalist. All of this is just my opinion, of course.

Key words are "in sales." Daughtry has sold more albums. Adam's tours, both solo and with Queen, have been hugely successful. DJs around the country are tweeting praise for Adam's upcoming single, Ghost Town, so hopefully they'll actually play it on the radio this time around and he'll have the hit he deserves. BTW, Adam just started following Jax on Twitter, and there is speculation that an upcoming Idol episode will have them doing a duet. It is, as I said, just speculation. I wouldn't expect such a duet to be as successful as his performance with Angie Miller a couple of seasons ago since Jax, to my ears at least, is not a powerful vocalist, but Adam knows how to blend with a singing partner even if it means he has to hold back.

All I can say about the Twitter Save is that Rayvon is darned lucky that there was a worse singer still left on the show these past two weeks. I would like to publicly thank my younger brother for helping me to finally realize who Clark was reminding me of. Tony Dow--Wally Cleaver from Leave It To Beaver. I was going nuts trying to place the resemblance.

Did they say they're doing the Twitter Save every week now? I was hoping it was just a one-time gimmick.

"Abbiebod" doesn't exactly flow off the tongue, but I've always had a problem with "Ichabbie" too, because I'm not sure if it's pronounced ICK-uh-bee, or Ick-AB-bee, and neither sounds good to my ear. How about "Abbichabod?" AB-ick-uh-bod. It's fun to say.

I'm glad you brought this up. There have been TONS of mediocre singers throughout the 14 seasons of Idol, including many in the first season. We've just forgotten about them because--well, they were forgettable. I thought it was very odd at the beginning when they had comments from the various contestants about Kelly, and Joey said that Kelly was the one person who knew what the current crop of contestants were going through. Really? Because I'm thinking EVERY SINGLE CONTESTANT FROM EVERY SINGLE SEASON knows what you're going through, Joey. I still can't get on the Joey train. She bugs me. Each individual song is okay, but she does each one in the same exact style with the nasal tone and weird pronunciation and affected mannerisms, and I just find her tiresome. I'm relieved that Daniel finally went home. Our long national nightmare is over. Okay, now I feel a little guilty and a little silly for my weekly rage over his continued presence, but he just didn't belong there. Better contestants went home before he did. He's got possibilities, but really should have waited a few years before auditioning. He just wasn't ready. Did anyone else have the impression that Qaasim kept going into falsetto because there was no way his limited range could have handled those notes if he'd stayed in chest voice? Everyone? Yep, thought so.

As is obvious from my avatar, I'm one of those who wants to tell Joey, "Look into the rafters, honey. That retired jersey you see is Adam's performance of Mad World." I guess I just don't get the Joey love anyway. To me she's a gimmicky one-trick pony with a nasal voice. I would listen to a whole album by her only if I were in the mood to spend an hour listening to a tranquilized goose. (I can mix my animal metaphors with the best of 'em.)

Happy now! I look forward to a season of Ichabod and Abbie and NO KATRINA.

I wish her well. What an unfortunate time to go through a medical crisis. Well, I guess there's never a good time to have a medical crisis, is there?

I was watching Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides last night and realized where Jax got the inspiration for her facial decoration.

I wonder why Quentin was given the go-ahead to sing "Rolling in the Deep" on Party Song night. I've seen this before on Idol, where a theme is announced but the real theme seems to be "A Song I Know." It will always be argued among viewers as to whether Theme Nights are good or bad. For the record, I like them. I could say it's because it challenges the contestants to go outside their wheelhouse or find a way to adapt a song to their wheelhouse and that's partly the case, but mostly it's because on Theme Nights there's a chance I will be familiar with most of the songs. I haven't listened to the radio to any great extent since the Nixon administration because I find so much of today's music repetitive and annoying. I'm sure there are some gems in the trash pile, but it's not worth the headache to pick them out.

Harry did point that out to Quentin. I had to do some Googling to find the exact quote. He said, "One of your greatest gifts is being able to dig deep down in a lyric. I thought that it was a relatively shallow interpretation. We didn’t get to see you do what you do every week. You were floating around smiling, I may be wrong, but that song is supposed to be about saying screw you to an old lover.”

As ShutUpFlanders suggested above, they could announce the bottom two at the beginning of the show. They would perform first and the judges would have the entire show to decide whether or not to use The Save on the one who got the lowest number of votes. The other contestants would know from the beginning that they were safe. At the end of the show, the lowest vote-getter would be announced and then either be saved or sent home. That would spare the contestants the agony of having to sit through a long period of time worrying about being eliminated and then having to perform with all that anxiety still coursing through their veins, but there would still be the suspense of not knowing who was being sent home until the end of the show. That was Maddie's seat. They said she was in some kind of pain before the show, so right after her performance she went backstage to be looked over by a doctor.

Ryan said several times during the evening that the contestants were being called to the stage "in no particular order" so the fact that Nick was the last to be called to sing doesn't mean he was next to last in votes. In fact, my Knollish mind wonders if he wasn't one of the more popular vote-getters and they called him last to put a scare into his supporters. Idol has been pulling stuff like that for a long time. This method of elimination seems unfair, because the contestants who have to wait a long time for their names to be called are going to be far more upset before they perform than the ones who are called very early on. There has to be a better way to do this. Shira above mentioned how much she hates the "neon lights of loserdom" that the contestants are forced to sit in while they await their fate, but I'm not sure that's any worse than the Stools of Shame to which the bottom three contestants were banished in the result shows of previous years. It's always hard to be rejected. The least cruel way to do it, if they're not going to have result shows, would be to just announce the person who is going home at the beginning of the next week's performance show, but I can see where the producers would think that too many people would turn off the show once the suspension is over, especially if the contestant sent home is their favorite. I watch to see the performances so I would stay tuned for the whole show regardless, but I'm sure many people don't feel that way.